Devil In Ohio's Emily Deschanel And Madeleine Arthur Break Down Arthur's Mysterious Character - Exclusive
Sometimes, the more we learn about a movie or TV character, the more of a question mark they become. That's certainly the case with Mae in "Devil in Ohio," played by Madeleine Arthur, a teenage girl who escapes a cult in the show's opening moments. Yet while Mae initially appears to be an innocent who's suffered terrible trauma when she's taken in by hospital psychiatrist Suzanne (Emily Deschanel) and welcomed into her family, her actions reveal she's far more cunning and calculated than anyone expects.
Arthur turns in a riveting performance that will keep viewers guessing about who Mae really is and what she really wants. Yet at the same time, Arthur ensures Mae is entirely believable as a teen attempting to fit into a new school and a home unlike anything she's ever experienced before. In a conversation with Looper, Madeleine Arthur explained all the shades of her character she wanted to convey through her performance, and she and Deschanel shared their mutual admiration for each other's work in "Devil in Ohio."
A slippery character that comes 'from a true place'
Madeleine Arthur noted that while Mae's goals after escaping from the cult are mysterious, she also wants to have a normal teen experience. "She wants to be [a typical teenager] in some ways. She wants to emulate [Suzanne's daughters] Jules, and even Helen in some ways," Arthur noted. "She's discovering little technological items for the first time, like a toaster and social media, and that brought some levity and some fun parts to play with as well as the part of her transcending her trauma. I love that there's that dichotomy — she's like, 'I want to have a backpack and go to school and walk the hallway,' and then she's trying to escape this really dark and dreary past."
Emily Deschanel noted that Arthur's grounded take on Mae is one of the things that make "Devil in Ohio" so intriguing. "Madeleine's amazing in this role, and she brings Mae to life in such an incredible way," Deschanel observed. "It is a really slippery character and it's fascinating, but she made it come from a true place. You might not understand every reason why she's doing certain things, but you could see there was a reason. It wasn't just someone manipulating something [for] no reason or something. She did an incredible job of embodying Mae and having this juxtaposition between this innocence and this savviness, a little bit of manipulation."
Arthur found Deschanel's work as Suzanne equally inspiring, reflecting, "It was a testament to Emily as an actor. Showing up on set, [Emily was] always so prepared, ready to go and such a hard worker, and stepping onto set with [Emily] made every scene so easy."
"Devil in Ohio" is available on Netflix.